People don't like change. Humans will naturally continue on the same path unless an outside influence makes them change their direction. Well ladies(hey girl, what up?) and gentlemen, I'm here to be your outside influence in order to change your direction from a snake fantasy draft to an auction fantasy draft.

For those of you who don't know what a snake/auction draft is, here is a quick overview. Fantasy Football incoorporates two different styles of drafting: Snake and Auction.

A Snake draft format in a 12 team league means that if you hold the 1st overall pick in the first round, you won't pick again until the last pick in the second round. Then you will get the 1st pick in the third round, last pick in the fourth round, and so on. Snake Drafts are real-time, team by team selections in a serpentine order.

An Auction draft format in a 12 team league is very different. Each team starts with $200 in virtual currency. Each person in the league will take turns nominating a player to be "auctioned off". Lets pretend that Adrian Peterson is the first player nominated. The person doing the nominating will open the bidding at $20 or whatever value they choose. Then each person will asynchronously up the bid for adding Adrian Peterson to their team. Person A opens the bidding at $20, then Person B ups the bid to $24. Person C ups the bid to $30, and so on until nobody else will top the current bid. If you have the highest bid at then end of the auction, you win the player. However, you will have less money to acquire other players for your team.

Auction Drafts Eliminate Wait Time
Snake drafts are the standard formate for fantasy football leagues. In theory, it makes sense that each player gets a turn to make a pick without fear of having their pick trumped by someone else bidding more. However in a traditional snake draft with a 12 team league, you must wait 22 picks in between your selections. With a 90 second draft timer, you may end up waiting half an hour in between picks. In an Auction draft, you are involved in every player selection.You have a chance at every player and can make bids on every player. At worst, you sit back while a player you did not want gets awarded but need to be ready for the next player. The action never stops. Never miss a good value.

Auction Drafts Increase the Need for Strategy
Contrary to a snake draft where you simply pick the best player available that fits a need when it is your turn to pick, Auction drafts makes it neccessary to budget your money, and recognize the value and opprotunity cost of buying a player. If you spend $55 on Aaron Rodgers because you believe he will have a breakout year, you will end up with less money to fill out other holes in your roster such as RB and WR. Play "the most dangerous game" by bidding up a player when you know a guy really wants him. Forget to bring up players you really want until many teams have burned their cap up - "oops". Intentionally bring up players you know others want when everyone has lots of money. If you are bidding against a player with only $10 left, you can bid $11 and win him straight up. Sorry bud.

Never Miss out on your "Sleepers"
You can have whatever strategy you want going into your snake draft, but you are still likely to lose out on players you were targeting due to your draft position or somebody drafting them in front of you. In an auction draft, the team is 100% yours. You have the option to bid on every single player including the unknown names that you researched all summer. If you want your guys, you can obtain them (cap permitting).

Build Your Dream Team
In a snake draft you must take who the board permits you to take. In an auction draft you can grab all the players that you want. You want to gain a scoring advantage by nabbing Antonio Brown? Great, bid him up more than everyone else. If you think spending extra on your WR1 will still enable you to gain a servicable WR3, then more power to you. At the end of the season, there are no excuses. The team is all yours. You had an equal opprotunity to grab every player and at the end of the season all the blame(or pride) is placed directly on you.

I encourage you to try out an auction mock draft this summer. You can easily join a mock draft on Yahoo!, or ESPN. Good Luck!